Leinster v Ospreys 05/03/2016 @ 15.00

[wixfjord]

Weird atmosphere, because we were absolutely 'Cack' in the 2nd half... Reddin was awful , Madigan ( apart from Place Kicking ) was awful... Just 3 points in 2nd half ??... thats going back to our form per- six nations... Really, for the remaining games, I think , if we dont have JS at 10 , we should have Marsh there...

The High point of the match for me was Isa's man and ball , try saving tackle - towards the end of the first half I think....
Pure class..

Madigan just played his normal game against a good team that can pressurise him.
Some great breaks and place kicking mixed with stupidly unsympathetic passes, poor direction and poor kicking from hand.
That's broadly what he's been doing for 2-3 years!

[Ruckedtobits]

There was a weird sort of atmosphere all round I thought.
Not much intensity at times, particularly last 15 and first 15 of second half.

Molony, Dooley, Leavy again impressive though. Molony in particular looks a great player.

+1
Really disjointed performance from what appeared like the most dis-interested team we have fielded since this time last year. No direction from half-backs who regularly chose the worst option, bad selection and execution of kicks, taking ball to side with no support, popping ball to static players waiting to get hit.

And yet, some of the periods of high tempo continuity in attack were excellent, some of the lines of running by Te'o were superb, some of the suppport lines by Isa and Leavy were magnificent. But this did not look like a team who had direction or an idea of how to break down opponents who were not much better than we were.

Still worried about Cian who is a long way from his best and Mike Ross was only on the pitch physically, he was somewhere else mentally.

Maybe the cold north wind had a lot to do with this performance but methinks that the half-backs were much more responsible for this shambles.

[paddyor]

Weird atmosphere, because we were absolutely 'Cack' in the 2nd half... Reddin was awful , Madigan ( apart from Place Kicking ) was awful... Just 3 points in 2nd half ??... thats going back to our form per- six nations... Really, for the remaining games, I think , if we dont have JS at 10 , we should have Marsh there...

The High point of the match for me was Isa's man and ball , try saving tackle - towards the end of the first half I think....
Pure class..

I don't think either halfs were awful. Reddan started badly and finished badly but in between he was good. McGrath wasn't really an improvement tbh. His clearance kicks were poo- giving up possession for a 5-10m gain....

Madigan did some good stuff and made a few mistakes. I don't think you can pin a lot of the wayward decisions on him( throwing long at the lineout into that wind, kicking for the corner 5 m off the centre of the posts). The thing that really bugged me was trying that penis around 35 minutes. They were on a yellow warning and even failure at the maul could have yielded an easier peno.

[alanair]

The thing that really bugged me was trying that penis around 35 minutes.

Yeah... down with this kind of thing

[alanair]

But once again, the standard of Reffing was dreadful.. The Breakdown , once again a complete Lottery. Now I was only really looking at it from a Leinster perspective , but Im sure we infringed also, But I lost count of the number of times the Ospreys players were allowed to hit the rucks, completely from the side

[artaneboy]

terrible soft defending has let them back in. McQuilkin must be hopping

Not the first time Triggs has made Tuquiri look like a good tackler. I don't think his future lies with Leinster.

Don't agree at all. He makes some mistakes but definitely adds physical presence around the field, breakdown and in the the line out. I'd have kept him; but apparently he's not staying.

[artaneboy]

Weird atmosphere, because we were absolutely 'Cack' in the 2nd half... Reddin was awful , Madigan ( apart from Place Kicking ) was awful... Just 3 points in 2nd half ??... thats going back to our form per- six nations... Really, for the remaining games, I think , if we dont have JS at 10 , we should have Marsh there...

The High point of the match for me was Isa's man and ball , try saving tackle - towards the end of the first half I think....
Pure class..

Madigan just played his normal game against a good team that can pressurise him.
Some great breaks and place kicking mixed with stupidly unsympathetic passes, poor direction and poor kicking from hand.
That's broadly what he's been doing for 2-3 years!

In a nutshell! Marsh is a better bet at this stage. Better judgement and padding skills.

[Oldschool]

While Teo deserved MOM he still has that very annoying habit of offloading when it's not on.
We could have been looking for a try bp at the death if he hadn't gone for two many killer offloads that weren't on.

[Kinger83]

The thing that really bugged me was trying that penis around 35 minutes.

I must have missed that part..

[Dexter]

Autospell has a lot to answer for
Brilliant!

[domhnallj]

The thing that really bugged me was trying that penis around 35 minutes.

I must have missed that part..

It was neither time the nor the place for that sort of thing

[blockhead]

http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sp ... player-mic

Isnt the player mic just great.

[artaneboy]

Just to note the possibly obvious- but Fergus was really good for the try. Great line, injection of pace (yeah, he still has a bit) and pass Leavy was perfect. Had a good all round game- with some punishing tackles on his counterpart and Davies too got crunched at least once.

Heartening improvement- and justification of Leo's selection over the unlucky Adam Byrne.

[nc6000]

http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sp ... player-mic

Isnt the player mic just great.

Wow we really got some great insight there as to what was happening in the thick of the action.

Why don't they just put a mic in the ball?

[cwebber82]

Weird atmosphere, because we were absolutely 'Cack' in the 2nd half... Reddin was awful , Madigan ( apart from Place Kicking ) was awful... Just 3 points in 2nd half ??... thats going back to our form per- six nations... Really, for the remaining games, I think , if we dont have JS at 10 , we should have Marsh there...

The High point of the match for me was Isa's man and ball , try saving tackle - towards the end of the first half I think....
Pure class..

Madigan just played his normal game against a good team that can pressurise him.
Some great breaks and place kicking mixed with stupidly unsympathetic passes, poor direction and poor kicking from hand.
That's broadly what he's been doing for 2-3 years!

Absolutely spot on. Hit the nail on the head regarding Madigan.

[cwebber82]

Weird atmosphere, because we were absolutely 'Cack' in the 2nd half... Reddin was awful , Madigan ( apart from Place Kicking ) was awful... Just 3 points in 2nd half ??... thats going back to our form per- six nations... Really, for the remaining games, I think , if we dont have JS at 10 , we should have Marsh there...

The High point of the match for me was Isa's man and ball , try saving tackle - towards the end of the first half I think....
Pure class..

Madigan just played his normal game against a good team that can pressurise him.
Some great breaks and place kicking mixed with stupidly unsympathetic passes, poor direction and poor kicking from hand.
That's broadly what he's been doing for 2-3 years!

In a nutshell! Marsh is a better bet at this stage. Better judgement and padding skills.

[Donny B.]

The thing that really bugged me was trying that penis around 35 minutes.

I must have missed that part..

It was neither time the nor the place for that sort of thing

Hey, come on, it was an adult crowd and risks were called for!

We had to at TRY the penis!!!

[Donny B.]

Just to note the possibly obvious- but Fergus was really good for the try. Great line, injection of pace (yeah, he still has a bit) and pass Leavy was perfect. Had a good all round game- with some punishing tackles on his counterpart and Davies too got crunched at least once.

Heartening improvement- and justification of Leo's selection over the unlucky Adam Byrne.

Ferg had a good game and I was happy for him. But he clearly hasn't the pace to be a winger at even AIL level, never mind Pro12 level.
He can still make a contribution, his defence is excellent and he can kick but he simply can't run fast enough anymore.

[curates_egg]

Ospreys dominated the first 15 and the second half. It is again testament to our defence that we won this game.
The tactic seemed to be to just give them possession and let them try and break us down: all halfbacks seemed to be consciously doing this. It worked but it wasn't good to watch and was highly risky.
Perhaps the worst moment was when we had just turned over the ball and got a penalty under the sticks and just hoofed the ball downfield. I think it was Kirchner for some reason who took it. Maybe he was going for the "money" touch but it was such a bad mistake.

All the young forwards and Ringrose look great. It was already clear to me that Dooley and Molony were the real deal but Leavy also joined that club this evening.
On the flip side, I am still apparently missing whatever it is that justifies the hype around McGrath. I thought he was really poor when he came on, making bad decisions and combining it with bad execution. Reddan made loads of mistakes as well but he's 36, bless him. If McGrath is going to be our main 9 next season, he has a lot of work-ons.

Still. 4 points is a good evening's work.

[blockhead]

The official attendance was 10,897. We have nearly 12,000 seson ticket holders. So are they now counting attendees's only? It seemed like in the last few seasons the season ticket total was counted into the official attendance and it sometimes seemed higher than what we could see in the ground.
On the other hand Munsters official attendance for last night was 13,552 but it really didn't look to be that many there from what I could see on the telly. Altough I did have a few pints on me.
Just wondering, like.
Anyway, we got 4 points. That wind was a significant factor in the game. Everytime Madser gets the ball these days I get nervous. He really hasn't ever looked like he can control from 10.
We are going to struggle away to Glasgow (although they will be missing a few internationals) and then Connacht.